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Caution: An entry to this hill is strictly restricted and a board
instructing the same has been put up in order to prevent people venturing into
this hill. Updated: As per the comments by Umesh Sir and Sudhakar, the restrictions have been removed and people can visit this place.

Good Morning Ambajidurga

Ambajidurga, the second fort we were on a look out for, between Kaivara and Chintamani, seemed so near yet so far way. Ambajidurga is situated atop a hill adjacent to the very well known cave temple of kailashgiri and the temple authorities have banned the entry to this hill fort owing to the unfortunate incidents that have taken place here a few years ago. long back, during our visit to Kailashgiri, we had inquired about Ambajidurga and temple authorities simply denied its presence and refused to give
any information, only saying that Ambajidurga was another name given to
Kailashgiri. When we told them that the fortification on the neighboring hill
was clearly visible and insisted on details about the fort, they replied that
there was no route to the hill and no one can go there. So we did not bother
much about it, and thought we will explore this place when the time is right. This
day was not too far from the day that we conquered Rehmangarh! We were much
eager to conquer Ambajidurga. We reached the spot from where the hill base from
where fortification was clearly visible. An old lady who stopped by told us
about the route to the hill top and gave us directions. We were glad that a route
to the hill top existed and went ahead following her directions. The hill was
gigantic and we looked too small in comparison to its massive size.

First tier of the Fort

Lord Hanuman Temple and The Fort Wall

Broken Gateway Arch

Overnight rains
had made the path slippery, but that didn’t matter much to us as we were
engrossed in the thought of reaching the fort. Our initial climb was a little
tricky as after reaching a certain point, we realized we were heading in a
wrong direction. We halted and to changed our course of climb and headed in the
right direction. After a few minutes of trek, we reached the first tier of the
fort on the first hill (or the lower hill) and rested here for a while. Later,
a short walk lead us to thetop of the first
hill which was an open plain land having a temple dedicated to Lord Hanuman and
a few fort ruins. We were able to view the fortification on the upper hill but found
no specific route. After investigating, we finally decided to make our own path
and succeeded in our venture within no time.We were at the fort entrance, and had a bird’s eye view of the
surroundings including the now dwarfed fort of Rehmangarh.

Fort Entrance and Rehmangarh

Water Tank

Lord Shiva Temple

The hill rises to about 4400 ft above mean sea level and was initially
fortified by the local Palegars, which was then rebuilt by Tippu and finally fell
into the hands of the British. There is a small temple atop the hill dedicated
to Lord Shiva and a few ruined structures and water tanks. We were quite happy for
having explored this fort too. We spent some time at the top and started to
descend slowly and carefully down the hill. Our descent was a little tiring but
calm, until we heard a person standing at the hill base shouting and signaling us
to come down quickly. Initially, we thought of him to be a shepherd boy calling
out to his cattle, but later realized he was indeed waiting for us! Once we
reached the base, he literally started shouting at us asking whose permission
we had taken in order to go to the fort and my wife retaliated saying, we had inquired
and only at the old lady’s suggestions, we decided to climb as she had not
warned us about any restrictions. While he forced us to accompany him to the
temple authorities, we insisted him on showing his identity card and if he did,
we would surely go with him. Somewhere, we thought he was boasting about
himself being a guard to the hill we had just explored. He argued saying there
was a big board put up right at the entry point which strictly restricted any
further entry. Truly, we were not aware of such a board. There was an exchange
of words between him and us, and on demanding him to show where the board was
put up, he took us a little away from where we started our trek and alas! There
was the board! We told him that we had taken the path present much before this
board and therefore had missed seeing it. We also questioned him about his
absence during the time of our entry at the starting point. If he were to be a
guard, he should have done his duty and cautioned us. We would have not
ventured further at all. Finally a person associated with the Kailashgiri
temple management who by chance had come to pick him, spoke to us and warned us
in a rough tone saying that the place we had just ventured was really not safe
and we shouldn’t have gone so far. On saying that we were not really aware of the
board as it was put up in a wrong place and since we had already made a safe return, there
was no use of telling us now not to have ventured. There was an exchange of
words again. It was slightly upsetting as this was the first time we had
encountered such a rude behavior. Though our conversation ended sourly, we were
quite happy that we had already explored the fort before they came and realized
we would have missed so much, just in case destiny had taken us on the route
towards that board!

Lord Hanuman

Mt Kailashgiri

Dwarfed Rehmangarh

Kissing the Clouds

This was our dual-fort-adventure that ended with destiny
being on our side. With both the regions being popular tourist spots, it’s
quite hard to believe the fact that these hills are actually unsafe. We
personally did not feel so, but who knows. Many places in Kolar district are considered
unsafe, including the Antharagange hills.

While
ascending the Talavadi hill, we spotted a Dolmen like structure on its neighboring
hillock. I had marked in my mind to explore this hill after our descent. Once
we were at the base of the hill, we went ahead to explore the Dolmen/megalithic
site. A short climb led us to a flat portion of the hill and we walked straight
to reach the Dolmen site. Yes! It was a huge
dolmen with a stone circle. But the sad part was that it remained slightly damaged,
although most of its parts were in place. The
stones used for the construction of Dolmen were huge and nicely dressed, having
an even surface. The size of the cap stone of this Dolmen was roughly around 6
feet by 6 feet in length and breadth with its depth/height varying between 4 to
10 inches.

Disturbed Dolmen (No.1)

There
was a natural water pond nearby and while exploring this area, we found another dolmen with a stone circle. But this had been completely destroyed with just only
one of its stone slabs standing, while the rest were missing. Probably the stones
were removed from here by miscreants. This stone Dolmen is very much similar to
the first dolmen in its dimensions, going by the sizes of the stone circle and
stone slab. After finding this, we became more curious and started to investigate
this small hillock for more such structures. We went on to find another stone
circle that lied completely disturbed. While walking around the hill, two fully
intact Dolmens in another neighboring hill caught our attention and we were
intrigued to explore that too!!!

Remains of Dolmen With Stone Circle (No.2)

We
tried to figure out the way to this neighboring hill which seemed nearby, but since
no direct route was present, we decided to circumvent and reach this hill. This
walk was much longer than we thought as we had to cross numerous small hillocks
on the way. On one such hillock, we spotted a Dolmen without stone circle. The
Dolmen was in a much better shape though a bit disturbed. Except for its front
stone slab, all the others laid in-situ. Probably, this never had a front slab
or it has gone missing. An anthill present inside the Dolmen obstructed our
view and we couldn’t see much.

Solitary Dolmen on Hillock (No.3)

Moving
on from here and after walking for a good 15 minutes, we reached a check dam. After
crossing the check dam, we entered into agricultural lands walking across which
we found a bigger Dolmen that had been excavated by the locals in the greed for
treasure; the site however would have carried plenty of bones and pieces of pottery.
Here in this land we could spot few dolmens spread across, but the land
comprised of standing crops which prevented us from venturing inside for inspection.
Finally after crossing all the farm lands, we found a small foot route to the
hillock on which we spotted the two intact dolmens.

Excavated Dolmen ( No.4)

Dolmen Along With Standing Crop (No.5)

Intact Dolmen ( No. 6 &7)

Finally
after exploring the area we reached the spotted that had intact dolmen giving
us a fair idea of the Dolmens once stood here. One of them had porthole on the
eastern stone slab and only one we had come across here with porthole. These
two were also so same size we had come across this area. Though nothing
remained inside these dolmens, it was good to see them intact. From here we
took other route were we came across the place which looked like ancient quarry
site. Little further we found the fort wall probably the first tier of the
Talavadi Fort. So we completed the circumventing the hill on which we spotted
the dolmen. Thus completing adventurous trek and exploration.

Talavadi Hill in the Background

Dolmen No.6

Broken Port Holed Slab

Our
efforts in finding any documentation related this place went in vain. By
looking at the style and sizes of the stones, the Dolmens can be safely
assigned to a period between 1000 BCE – 300 BCE. There are two articles in the KarnatakaItihasa Academy which mentions about the presence of megalithic sites around
Kootgal hill, although they fail to mention about the existence of these
dolmens. We only hope that the remnants survive the test of time and human
greed. Megalithic
structures are mysterious and need in-depth study in order to understand their
purpose, rather than superficially relating them to burial practices. Off late,
a lot of research is being carried out in this direction in order to gain more clarity.

Talavadi is a small
nondescript village off Ramanagara – Magadi road. Though not much history about
this place is documented, it has in store many untold stories. Last Sunday, we
got a chance to trek Kootgal Betta we spotted this fort and decided to trek
next week. We planned and reached Talavadi quite early in the morning to start
our trek. I was accompanied by my son
Adhi and my friend Shashi Kiran. We had our breakfast in Ramanagara and reached
the deviation off the Ramanagara – Magadi road. Hereon, we began our off road drive
to reach the base of this hill. We had
to make a few enquiries with the locals about the directions to reach the hill
base and the trek route thereon. An elderly person informed us that it would be
difficult to climb this hill as the route had been engulfed by grass and other
thorny vegetation, and gave us the directions vaguely. We thanked him and
decided to move ahead towards the hill base.

Talavadi Hill Fort

We had to park our
vehicle at a point from where there was no motor-able road, and had to walk to until
the start point of the trek. At the first look, the hill seemed small giving us
a thought that it wouldn’t be much of a challenge to scale the hill. We started
our search for the trek route and reached a small temple dedicated to Udbhava
Anjaneya Swamy. The guardian Lord reminded us to search around for the presence
of any fort or its ruins.After taking
the blessings of the Lord, we decided to move ahead and actually had to almost
circumvent the hill in search of a proper route to climb. After walking for
almost 15 minutes, we reached a big water pond. Just by the side of the pond,
we sighted a path which seemed trek-able and hence decided to ascend from here.

Water Pond and The Fort

Sri Udbhava Anjaneya Swamy

The initial climb was quite
easy and straight forward, and we reached a tier of the fort wall.Here we met two boys from Bengaluru who were
also there to explore the hill. As we struck a conversation with the boys, I
realized that they too were in search of the right path to continue their climb.
I volunteered to search the environs for any path that could be walk-able.Meanwhile I requested the others to rest at a
place in shade and went in search of the route. After exploring the
surroundings for some time, I zeroed in on the most probable route that could
be taken to reach the top. I called the others to join me, along with Shashi
and Adhi. Shashi took charge from here leading the way. Seeing the route that
was to be taken hereon, the two boys gave up the trek and left the place
without informing us! The vegetation was dense with tall grass and thorny shrubs.

Wade Thru the Grass and Thorny Shrubs

The Rock Cut Steps

Kootgal Betta

We continued to crawl
under the grass and thorny shrubs and finally reached a point from where we
were almost sure about the path further. Shashi did a wonderful job in finding
the path and we reached a spot which had big boulders on either side. We
sighted much fortification on the left boulder and so decided to explore it. The
boulder was very steep with rock cut steps to aid the climb and passing these
15 odd steps was one hell of an experience! We reached the top of the hill
which housed a ruined mandapa kind of a structure along with a fresh water
pond. The fresh water pond was filled with many beautiful white lilies. We spent some time enjoying the sight of the water
pond and its surroundings.

Fresh Water Pond

Flying High

Mandapa and Nadadwaja

White Water Lilies

As per an inscription
found near Ramanagara (EC Vol 9 Ch 16) dated 1351 CE, Talavadi was ruled by a
local Palegara named Bomanna, who was a feudal king under the rule of Bukkanna
Vodeyar of Vijayanagara Kingdom. Later Sri Kempe Gowda captured and strengthened
this fort, which mostly served as a military outpost during his rule.Though much of the fortification has been
damaged, its remnants give a good picture of what a grand fort it was once. The
formation rocks are such that they served as natural defense from the three
sides and the fort was only accessible from one side. At a few places, we were
able to spot horse shoe marks which are a common sight across forts built by the
Kempe Gowda clan.

Horse Shoe Marks

Cliff Hanging

The descent posed us a
challenge where we had to cross the 15 steep steps and we had to literally
cliff hang for some time.The descent
across the grass and thorny path too was a bit challenging as we had to
overstep and pass through them. Once we were out of this, the descent was easy.
As we continued our descent, we spotted something really interesting on the
neighbouring hill and decided to check them out on reaching the hill base.

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